Abstract

The essay identifies a profound link between poem and witness, both as a voice of life that is violently erased, and as an invocation of the You who saves. The poetic vocation to the witness makes its way in Celan in contrast with a lucid look at the dramatic restriction of vital horizons and with a growing inclination to suicide. But his poetic path remains until the end of his life a transformation of the way towards death from a way of cancellation to a way that goes back to life «on its own margin».